Hooks

The 10-minute rule in movies states that a movie should hook the viewer in 10 minutes. Video games require a greater investment than movies in terms of both time and money. How do we convince players that they have invested wisely?

Leanne C. Taylor explores ways that games go about hooking players Many offer an opening cinematic episode as well as tutorial gameplay to entice players. By the time players have finished the first objective, they have a pretty good idea of the what the game is about.

Taylor argues that successful games tend to leave the player asking one of three questions (or some combination thereof) at the end of the introduction:

What has happened? (History)

What's happening now? (Mystery)

What's going to happen? (Story)

Though she does acknowledge the importance of gameplay in a brief sentence, I think it's worth noting that when she says "successful," what she means is "narratively successful." Certainly, Rock Band doesn't grip me with it's opening cinematic; I’m initially drawn to it because the controller looks like a drum set and gives me a very good idea of what the gameplay will be about.

by Mark Wernham. Machine #69 recalls Ryman’s 253, and especially Bob Arellano’s Sunshine ’69 both in its embrace of arbitrary connection and its fond nostalgia for the era when cheap booze, good drugs, fast cars and hot guns seemed to offer everything worth wanting and when nothing was worth wanting very much.

A new hyperromance for the Web. Sparsely linked, La Farge’s new hypertext nods at Stephanie Strickland’s design and to Michael Joyce’s direct address to the reader. but brings a new voice and sensibility to Web fiction.

Multimedia notes from underground, where a traumatized girl furnishes a cozy space in an underground tunnel. Script by Lynda Williams, music and code by Andy Campbell and Matthew Wright. A web work that’s especially nice on the iPad. (The floor lamp is a nice allusion. Get it?)